Michael Thompson, MPP?

City Councillor David Shiner has already announced he will be running for the Ontario John Tory Party in Willowdale, but at this weekend’s convention of the No-Name Party there were whispers that another “veteran Toronto councillor” will also be running provincially come October 10. The identity of said councillor remains under wraps—apparently he or she has yet to make a final decision. I have no idea who it is any more than you do, so let’s have some fun guessing.

The one person we can rule out for certain is that Denzil Minnan-Wong, who has been working hard at playing the role of shadow mayor at city hall, and who I’m told is staying put. For a moment I thought it might be Frances Nunziata in York South – Weston, until I remembered how her brother, John Nunziata, claimed during the 2003 election that some other campaign (which everyone presumed was John Tory’s) had offered him a plum job to drop out of the race. All of which leads me to believe that John Tory probably wants to stay away from all Nunziatas for a long time.

There’s a part of me that hopes it’s former Deputy Mayor Case Ootes, for the simple reason that he’s just so obviously bored to tears at city hall. He phoned in his entire election campaign last year and nearly lost. But his putative riding, Toronto Danforth, is an NDP stronghold, and I doubt he has the energy to unseat Peter Tabuns.

But here’s the candidate who’d really make a splash for the Tories: Michael Thompson in Scarborough Centre. The lone black councillor at city hall, Thompson has fought effectively for his community. He is the kind of star candidate John Tory would love to have on his team—and Tory’s dogged efforts to reach out to the black community must surely have registered with Thompson. And for what it’s worth: at this weekend’s convention the party unveiled its current candidates, and Scarborough Centre remains one of the most winnable Toronto ridings for the Tories that doesn’t yet have a candidate.